Anthony Overton Memorial Observatory – RASC Vancouver

Mark, Wayne and Leigh

Arrived: 8:00 pm

Temp: -1 C, Clear

Mark Wayne and I tried to take advantage of an unexpected clear night to try to finish what we had started doing on Jan 7.  We wanted to get the guide camera working and try out the new guide scope system.

I had brought along the cables and USB hub that I had purchased on the weekend to enable us to hook the camera and guide hardware to the PC in the office.  Mark and I ran the cables between the dome and the office and hooked everything up.

Wayne had brought his binoculars and camera.  He kept busy outside for part of the evening and then worked on his laptop in the office the rest of the night.

We then fired up the PC.  We got a “new hardware found” window as expected, however what we didn’t expect was a “drivers not found” message.  We both thought we had used a Meade DSI on this PC in the past.  At this point we were not worried as Mark had his wireless Internet device with him so he went to the office and downloaded drivers from Meade’s website.  We thought it would then work.  Unfortunately Meade had updated their drivers to Windows7 and deleted their Windows XP drivers.  Mark and I now regretted not bringing a disc from home that contained the drivers.  So much for testing the guider that night.

While Mark was downloading drivers in the office, I started the telescope up and moved it to Betelgeuse for alignment.  I used the Telrad that Mark had mounted on the telescope last visit to centre the scope.  Without adjustments to the Telrad I was able to find the star in the eyepiece of the telescope.  I was impressed.  Once I had focus and centred the star, I adjusted the Telrad to centre it as well.  At Mark’s suggestion I also put an eyepiece in the guide telescope and centred it to the main scope for now.  I had to use an old barlow barrel to lengthen the optical train long enough to achieve focus on the guide scope.

Once we established that we were not going to solve our driver issues we decided to take advantage of our clear sky and do some visual observing.  The eyepieces on hand left something to be desired, however we were still able to view M42, M45, Jupiter and the moon before calling it quits for the night.  I will put some better eyepieces on my shopping list for the upcoming year.  The different view through the two telescopes gives a nice flexibility as to the objects we can enjoy observing.

Next time up we will get the guider up and running.  Then we will try some imaging.

Depart: 11:30pm.

Temp: -1 C

Mark and Leigh

Arived: 4:30 pm

Temp: -2 C, Light rain.

On the way to the AOMO Mark and I encountered a tree across the road.  It had fallen down just past the road branches off to the UBC Liquid Mirror Telescope.  It was not a big loss to the forest as it was so rotten that it broke into 5 or 6 pieces upon impact even though it was about 8″ in diameter.  We had no problem clearing the road.

Our main purpose of going to the AOMO was to mount the new accessory mount bracket and guide scope with camera to the Meade telescope.  While I passed tools and parts, Mark accomplished the task.  We then strung some of the cables to see where we come up short.  I have some shopping to do.

We then mounted a Telrad onto the Meade on the oppisite side of the counter weights from the finder scope.  Next clear night we will give it a test drive as well.

I then made some notes and a short shopping list.  We re-tarped the scope locked up and travelled back down through a wet dark forest.

Depart: 5:30pm.

Temp: -2 C

Mark, Leigh and Wayne

Arrived: 8:15pm

Temp: -4 C, 3″ snow, Clear mag 5 sky.

Depart: 10:40pm.

A quick decision to take advantage of a rare clear night this month.  I did not put out a general group email as we were not even sure the road conditions would allow us to reach the scope.  As it was we needed to put the Tracker into 4wheel drive to make the climb past the second gate.  We found about 1-1/2 inches of snow covered everything.  Most had slid off the roof but there was still a skiff.

Wayne wanted to take some wide field images with his camera while Mark and I wanted to take those images of Jupiter that eluded us the last time we were up.

Mark and I got the scope aligned first.  It pointed surprisingly accurate to Deneb on the first try.  Different than the experience that Oleg and I had back in August.  This leads me to think it has something to do with daylight saving time.  I’ll have to put some more thought to this.

We mounted the SBig camera and found the PC couldn’t find the drivers.  It took Mark and I a couple of attempts to get them loaded again.   Persistance paid off and we were up and running.  We worked on focus for awhile and then swung the scope to Jupiter.  After we took a few test images, Mark went downstairs to work on some processing on his laptop while I set up an imaging run on Jupiter.    I then joined Mark and Wayne in the office for coffee while the program did its thing.

Later I moved the images onto my flashdrive and hopefully I will do a better job of processing than I have of keeping up with this log.

Departed: 12:00M

Temp: -3 C

Darkness meter: n/a

Mark and Leigh

Arrived: 9:00pm

Temp: -1 C

Mark and I made a quick trip to the observatory in order to test fit an accessory plate that Brett had manufactured for the telescope.  Brett had taken the measurements at previous visits and we were anxious to give it a try.

Even though we did not have screws quite long enough to safely mount the plate on a permanent bassis, we were able to tell that it would fit perfectly.  Way to go Brett!

We removed the plate as we were not intending to leave it mounted.  Mark intends to drill holes in it to enable the mounting of a guide scope as well as a camera mount and possible other accessories in the future.  The guide scope has already been purchased and is a Sky-WatcherBK80 short tube refractor.  We intend to use Mark’s Meade DSII camera in combination with PHD guiding software.

We also took up a longer R232 cable to enable us to hook up the telescope with the PC in its new location in the office.  We then started up the PC and the telescope to test the connectivity.  On the first try the telescope connected with the PC and we were able to control it with the PC.

We got all excited at this point and decided to try to image Jupiter.  We went outside and could see it was nice and clear so we went up and uncovered the scope and opened the dome.  Once we had the dome opened we could see that it had clouded over in that little bit of time.  Oh well, we got some more practice at untarping and tarping up the equipment.

Depart: 10:40pm.

Temp: 0 C

Darkness meter: n/a

Work Party: Leigh, Mark Eburne, Wayne Lyons, Allen Jones, Terry McComas, Ciara Morgan-Feir, Bob Perry and Pomponia Martinez

Arrived: 9:00am

Temp: warm

First of all I want to extend a heartfelt thank you to all our volunteers that helped Mark and I with all the hard work that needed doing around the AOMO.

Allan and Mark set about falling trees in the northeast and southeast quadrants where the Malcolm Knapp Forest administration had given us permission to do so.  Our object was to open up the horizon for better views from both the outside pad and the main telescope.  This was very punishing work for guys who no longer do this sort of physical work every day.  I had the easy task of using my son’s Tracker to drag the trees up the hill where Terry, Bob, Wayne, Ciara and myself could limb them and buck them.

Bob also went to town with a gas weed wacker to knock down all the undergrowth that had sprung up around the building and pad.

Terry, Ciara, Wayne, Bob and I all loaded a trailer Mark had brought, with the limbs and other slash for disposal at the designated sight.  Terry, Bob, Mark and Wayne took turns driving it to unload.

Pomponia moved the PC from the dome to the office and ran the wires as well.  She also cleaned up the office and re-arranged the computer stand in the dome.

Thanks again to all of you.  You never complained even though your bodies were.  Amongst some well earned grunts and groans, we loaded up and called it a day.  Score for the day: Astronomers 22 trees, Forest 0 astronomer casualties.  Good day!

Depart: 4:00 aprox.

Temp: Still warm.

Darkness meter: n/a

Oleg Mazurenko, Leigh, Terry McComas, Mark Speller and April

Arived: 9:20pm

Temp: 14 C

Clear Magnitude 5 sky.

My appologies ahead of time as my notes for this night are minimal to say the least.  I didn’t think I would be this delinqent in keeping up the AOMO log this past summer.  I will do the best I can from memory (which is getting more unreliable as the years go by).

Mark and April spent the night doing a binocular walk of the night sky.  They were very good at finding objects and helped me find a couple of items I have always had trouble finding.  It is always rewarding to be with a group of astronomers on a clear night.  I always seem to find something new to learn.  Also Mark entertained us all by identifying aircraft flying overhead by the sound of their engines and the few markings visible on their tails.

Terry brought his recently purchased telescope to get some help with his learning curve.  His Questar 3.5″ Maksutov-Cassegrain is a beautiful instrument and I am sure he will have many a viewing pleasures with it as he becomes more comfortable with its use.  I was glad I was able to be of some small help and I look forward to getting more opportunities to view through it in the future.

Oleg spent his time in the dome on the big scope taking images again.  I helped him a little at first and then left him to it.  Oleg has since sent me an email with an assessment of the scopes performance and possible maintenance projects going into the future.  Thank you Oleg for your very helpful report.

Feel free to fill in the gaps as I was visiting everyone and not spending very much time on any one thing.

Depart: 2:15am

Temp: 12 C

Darkness meter: n/a

Oleg Mazurenko & Leigh

Arived: 12:35am

Temp: 13 C

Clear Magnitude 5 sky.

Oleg and I took a late (or early morning) trip up to the AOMO to enable Oleg to try using his camera and laptop to image through the observatory’s telescope.

Upon start up of the telescope we tried to synch to Altair.  We found the telescope to consistantly slew to 1 hour east of Altair.  We were able to centre the star using the RA control of the telescope alone.  We checked the telescope’s clock setting, which was accurate, and the computer’s time setting and found it also to be accurate.  Once the telescope was synched we had no futher problems with finding objects.  We will have to sort that out another night.

We mounted Oleg’s camera with the same nose piece Mark used on his DSLR, screwed into Oleg’s lens T3 adapter.  Oleg used his laptop to control his camera.  Oleg carried on doing focus and test images while I went down to the office to catch up on some work on my laptop.

Oleg was able to come up with some suggestions for adjustments and maintenance on the telescope based on the results of some of his images.  He has since sent me an email and I hope to work with him through next year getting some of his ideas acted upon.

Depart: 4:am

Temp: 12 C

Darkness meter: n/a

Mark & Leigh

Arived: 8:45pm

Temp: 14 C

Mark & I set up Mark’s EQ6 with his Takahashi 106ED mounted upon it.  I tried to cheat the darkness a little by trying to align Marks mount while the sky was still quite blue.  I fell for the old mistake of aligning to the wrong “polaris”.  Needless to say we then wasted time trying to obtain three star alignment and eventually came to the realization that something basic was wrong.  By this time of course we could actually see polaris and realize my intitial setup was completely haywire.  I hung my head in shame and fixed the problem.  After that, things went remarkably well.

Mark then imaged NGC7000 (North American Nebula) and IC5067 (Pelican Nebula).  He took the images with his Canon modified DSLR.  I think he was pleased with the results and in fact his image of NGC7000 apeared on the inside back cover of our July/August issue of NOVA.  Mark also imaged M31 before the morning dew and clouds of mosquitoes convinced us to call it a night.

I got home just as the sun was poking its first rays over the mountains to the northeast.  I had to wait for a family of racoons to waddle out of my driveway before I could park.  Overall a very nice summer night at the AOMO.

Depart: 4:am

Temp: 10 C

Darkness meter: Twilight